Mr Lister Sir
by aeronq
Summary: Set seconds after 'Balance of Power' in the first series. Lister is in command of the ship and is after only one thing, Kochanski. Rimmer's hologrammatic life is in the balance and Holly isn't helping. Rated for language. Slash if you squint hard enough
1. Chapter 1

Once more we journey into the realms of Angst. Watching Series 1 on DVD (Yayness!!) inspired me to do this a couple of months back. Once again was thinking too deeply about episodes, the gap between 'Balance of Power' and 'Waiting For God' intrigued me. How long does Rimmer think that Lister is in charge? What happens in that gap?

Mild slashy references if you read it like that. Quite possibly this may be my first foray into this. Indulge me, I am yet new to the ways of writing.

Starts immediately after the end of the episode 'Balance of Power'.

For cazflibs; my love and my muse. And Katy cos she likes boys who like boys.

Additional – I actually wrote this fic several years ago, put some of it online, lost confidence, pulled it off and have only decided to finish it and put it online again after having a burst of inspiration watching the "Back to Earth" series. It did some things right but not enough and I will always love the older stuff.

Still for cazflibs, my love, my muse and now my wife. And Katy cos I'm sure she still loves boys who love boys.

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

Rimmer held the barely tacked on grin on his face as Lister leapt in the air in triumph; hardly seeing as he landed, threw a casual salute and strode off around the corridor. His vision shook, a shimmery haze covering everything, a layer of brine that refused to be shed.

He felt a tremor go up from his knees and lodge as a massive bout of nausea just above his solar plexus. Never cry where they can see. Or have a massive fit. He didn't need a book on Poweramics to know that, the concept had been drummed into him very early on in the hack and slash world of boy's public school.

Stopping by a vending machine he leant against the wall, using all of his concentration not to fall through it. His entire body shook, his hands grasping and stiff with all of the force he possessed to stop them from clawing everything around him to pieces. His right leg jiggled so violently it threatened his balance. He felt his rage boil within him, as his sense and reason shoved two fingers up at him and wandered off.

Rimmer slipped to the floor and curled up, arms around his head and knees tucked in. A small ball of pain tucked in a corner. He's six years old again. He could almost smell the damp earth under the roots of a huge oak next to the dried up stream that sat in the grounds of Io House. It stood next to the pond dug for the pre-schoolers to go pond dipping in the summer months, abandoned for the rest of the year. His first ever permanent hiding place, alone and secluded from the cruel world that was out to get him. He built a shelter from bits of material scavenged from the fly tipping piles in the woods, sheets of ply and plastic. He stowed a few toys and comics wrapped up in thick plastic amongst the creeping roots to give him some comfort when it became too much. His own little hidden fortress.

It was only a matter of time before Johnny, Frank and Howard had found him there in one of their 'special' visits from the Academy. He remembered feeling like he was going to be crushed into oblivion, ground to powder by their heavy boots that wouldn't stop kicking, the sheltering walls and wooden roof becoming smaller around him as his own kin spat abuse at him. He'd been terrified yet there was no let up, no respite. He'd dragged his tiny frame, all bruised and battered, to the school yard, sobbing his eyes out. In return, he was disciplined for tracking mud across the carpet in the reception and making up stories about the saintly Rimmer boys.

He may be three feet taller and dead but the stinging burn of tears tracing their way across his face and the taste of hopeless defeat, were still the same. It sometimes seemed that he could taste nothing but failure, that all he could smell was the stink of his own crushed spirit, all that he saw was grey. No future, no reason to be kept alive.

The main advantage of hiding all your life is that you learn to cry silently.

*_*_*_*_*_*_*

Lister paced back and forth across the drive room, whiskey can in one hand and a cigarette in the other. He was undoubtedly pleased. His grin would have been blinding if he had a pure-white smile. Of course he didn't, a lifetime of only brushing his teeth whenever the lingering taste of old garlic became too much was not good for general dental health. But nonetheless he was obviously happy.

He was in command! Well, technically he wasn't. Holly still piloted the ship in much the same way, he still had to do anything he wanted doing himself and he still had buggerall idea about how to run a several million ton spacefreighter. Oh, and the fact he didn't technically pass the chef's exam. But the important thing was that Rimmer thought he had. It would have been more helpful if Holly accepted him being in command but when it boiled down to it, Holly still obeyed rank out of habit more than anything else. Anyway, it was a pain in the arse trying to negotiate the finer points of democratic officerhood with a senile computer.

It was surprisingly easy to convince Holly not to tell Rimmer. The Cat wouldn't tell either; he was far too conceited to notice anything happening to anyone that wasn't him or in front of his view of a mirror. It was quite simple to bribe the Cat if he found out anyway. Lister had found a disco ball on a trip down to the supply decks – a perfect 'shiny thing' to keep him amused for a few days.

He stopped suddenly. It hit him how close he was to getting her back. The woman who he had fell so madly in love with, the one he hadn't been able to shake the thought of from his mind in the months since he'd emerged from stasis and found her dead. He felt crushing guilt sometimes; maybe there was a way he could have done something that meant that she could have survived. Images of her being ripped apart by the nuclear wind that had punched through the whole ship woke him up screaming. At times he felt as guilty as if he had ripped off the side of the reactor himself.

One of the only women he had truly loved, and now he had a second chance that he'd previously thought impossible to get. He could woo her again, make her fall in love with him again, they could both go into stasis and go back to Earth. Fiji could still happen. Maybe he could sort out something. Maybe humankind _had_ found a cure for death. He still had to know.

Life was sweet, he thought as he took a drag on his cigarette. It was all going to work and Rimmer couldn't even stop him if at all went right. Rimmer respected that rank crap. All Lister had to do was ask, no, demand that he give him Kochanski. No more pleading, no more having to take any of that 'white card black card' crap. Things would be the way they should be.

He stopped pacing, the cigarette now in his ear; the can just about to touch his lips. Could he do that to Rimmer? The man who had kept him sane, the closest to a human companion he had? If he went through with this, it would be like him dying all over again. He would kill the man who had given him a structure and purpose to his pointless life. Could he honestly do that to him? I mean, what would Rimmer do in his situation?

He grinned wider if it were physically possible without surgical alterations to his jaw and downed his whiskey. Goalpost head would be dead by morning.


	2. Chapter 2

It had been about half an hour as far as Rimmer could tell. You lose sense of time when you alternate between being huddled in a ball thinking only of how useless you are and going into a flapping panic that you're about to die. He entertained no illusions that Lister wouldn't kill him; he knew in his weasel heart that he would never turn him on again. He had been stuck on this freezing metal prison with Lister long enough to know that the only things that convinced him to open his eyes in the morning and not just catapult himself face first into deep space were a) the miracle that was curry paste and b) the thought that one day he could find a way to get back with Kristine Kochanski. Rimmer didn't think for a single second that the months they had spent together of relentless insults and barely concealed hatred would really match up with the possibility of getting back together with a woman Rimmer wasn't even sure Lister had shagged.

He wandered back to the sleeping quarters in a half daze and merely stood. He felt scooped out, useless. It was sometime before he slumped into the chair at the table and prepared for his last meal.

Holograms don't eat. They get a sensation of being less hungry after eating some digital reproduction of food, it didn't even taste anything like it. You didn't even need to swallow if you wanted. Just _bang_, you weren't hungry. Rimmer found this hard to cope with when he had first been resurrected. Eating was for the living, another aspect he wasn't parlay to. He was dead, dead dead dead dead dead. Why should it matter that someone is trying to make him dead again? Maybe he wasn't relishing the prospect of being turned off, dying in a way, because he had experienced it and he knew he just didn't like it.

He knew it was probably his last meal. Lister was in charge. There was only one reason he had even bothered attempting the exam in the first place. To get Kochanski back. The ship could only support one hologram. Her hologram.

The future didn't seem very rosy, long or interesting for Arnold J Rimmer.

"Ready yet Arn?" Holly's face looked out from the wall across from him, a strange half grin on his face. It fell soon after looking at the abject misery that Arnold seemed to be wallowing in.

Holly could tell when Arnold was depressed. Back when the crew were alive, it used to take him a few nanoseconds to check on the hologram projection suite and assess a hologram's hormone levels, replay through their experiences of the last few hours and check against their psychological evaluation to calculate their current emotional status.

But he had stopped doing that very quickly since the drop in his IQ. These days, it would take some time for an in-depth analysis and he just really couldn't be arsed.

One way Holly had used to tell if Rimmer was depressed was through the analysis of facial expressions, like he used to do with the living crew members. Not having a person to practice on in three million years did a great deal to reduce that ability though.

No, the real reason he could tell Rimmer was depressed was the fact he was sitting four inches into the chair's surface, the seat coming up to his navel. He only lost control like that when he was really preoccupied.

"What happened Holly? Where did I screw up?"

There was a pause. About half a minute as far as either of them could tell. Thousands of scenarios from Rimmer's life aboard the Dwarf that had been recorded in the hologram projection suite zipped past Holly's vision.

"I dunno Arn. I'm willing to bet that it was at some point in your early twenties. Thereabouts."

Rimmer's look could have cooked eggs from across the room. It subsided though. Holly was probably right. He sank another inch into the chair.

Holly was perturbed. Maybe he should have told him that Lister was faking it. The man was a wreck. It was a bit of a guess really, but he thought that he could just about make that out.

Rimmer was trying to beat his head against the table but was just getting more and more annoyed as it passed through the surface. Suddenly he stopped. His face was hovering just above the surface as his leg jiggled, his face screwed up in concentration. Minutes passed.

Sitting upright and sitting on the chair properly, he looked worried. This was normal for him, but there was some new gleam in his deep brown eyes. His whole face became harder, more determined, slightly smiling.

"Holly, give me the personal records of Kristine Kochanski."

Holly's brows lowered. He was up to something. He just couldn't put his thingamy on what it could be.

*_*_*_*_*_*_*

Lister schmoozed into the sleeping quarters, sliding into the room with all the grace and finesse of a horny rhino. Four cans of Glen Fujiyama and the power trip had established a permanent grin on his face that was impossible to obliterate.

He checked to see if Rimmer was in the room. His face screwed up in concentration as he squinted and slowly started to turn on the spot. Stopping twice to wait for the nausea to pass, he had finally panned his vision across the whole room. No Rimmer.

"Hol?"

The bald head flashed up over the mirror.

"Where's Rimmer? I order that he be brought from wherever he is to here, right here. Before me."

"He's in Luigi's on C deck. Hang on a tick."

Lister frowned, the mental wheels overly greased by alcohol. Luigi's. It was a food place. With food. Expensive food. They sold wine. He shuddered.

Rimmer's rangy frame materialised a few feet away, dressed in his technician's uniform, a glass of red wine in his hand. He put down his hologrammatic glass and gave his drunken comrade a slow and purposeful Rimmer Salute.

Lister fell over from looking too closely at the spinning arm. Getting up, he saw Rimmer sipping from the wine glass and felt nauseous again.

"Rimmer I gotta tell you someit, someit you may not like lots cos it's something you wont like at all cos I gotta tell you, man."

He took a belt from the half full whiskey can. Rimmer smiled and shook his head. Lister burped and tried not to think of how it tasted.

"You're a goit. A complete and total goitity smegger. You were one of the crew and they were all gittish but we look out for people, you have to look out for your mates. You're not my mate but you're crew and now there's no crew cos you killed em. Anyway, I'm here to tell you shomething you wont like and I know cos you hate me cosh I'm a smegger and you don't like her but she was crew too but I had me plan. She would ride the horses and I would grill burgers and buns and watch the sheep and we'd get married and I missh her Rimmer. I had to do thish. You hate me and I know you don't want to hear thish but I gotta get her back cosh we were going to Fiji and she loved me. I loved her, she wash lovely. She'sh lovely….I have to tell you Rimmer, I shaid that I wash going to shwitch you off cosh I need her more than you, she loved me and you don't like me.'

Lister was only standing by holding out an arm and spinning every time he overemphasised a point with his can. Rimmer stood still, desperately trying to pick up any sense from the babble. Lister leant on the table, his dropped can leaking golden liquid across the steel floor.

"I want her back Rimmer, she ish my everything. I'm shorry but I have to turn you off. You didn't like it but ish true and I am in charge now. Me."

The last words hit Rimmer like pepper spray to the face. They stung. He twisted his mouth in distaste.

"With all due respect, sir, I see why I am to be turned off. You fell in love with a woman who you never spoke to more than twice, three million years ago. You're living in a fantasy land. You had nothing with her then and she'll have nothing to do with you now."

Lister's face contorted into a snarl, an expression that didn't belong on its chubby shape. He stood bolt upright.

"You Bashtard! She doesh love me!" He screamed at the hologram. "You'll never undershtand that because you've got nothing in your life, no friendsh, no love and you've never had anything. You've never loved like thish, loved so the pain eats you inshide. She'll know me, shesh my Krishi."

Rimmer looked up; staring into Lister's crazed eyes. He could imagine the hot whiskey breath of the enraged Lister, the feel of his physical presence. Only imagine. Holograms don't feel.

"You bashtard, I've had it with you. I'm gonna turn you off and live with Krishi and we'll be together alwaysh and I'll be happy and you won't be there with your shtupid whining and your stupid hair and your ironed underpants. I hate you, you bashtard."

Holograms don't feel.

"Very well then sir. I took the liberty of checking the relevant regs for this, you have to be sober to give that order. I know in the morning you'll probably feel the same way though."

Lister heaved, his whole frame a restrained ball of fury. His maddened face was red with exertion and his fists were clenched. Rimmer was barely able to stand still; his leg was jiggling madly.

"You're dead right. Morning shhift change. Drive Room."

Rimmer clicked his heels together and saluted. Lowering his eyes so that he didn't have to show Lister the quavering of unshed tears he went from the room. In his rush his hand passed through Lister's arm.

He felt nothing as the tears burned his eyes.

Holograms don't feel.


	3. Chapter 3

Rimmer's last night wasn't pleasant. It involved a lot of tossing and turning as he agonised over the mistakes made with Lister: flashbacks of the blazing rows, the cruel barbs spelling out his doom. However he looked at it, there was no way to salvage this. He was on the back foot with no power to do anything at all. No mercy, no begging, no nothing.

He remembered that chubby face spitting those words in his face, saying that all Rimmer could hope for was to be ordered to his own death because he repected all that officer smeg. He'd obey him because it was all he could do. It made him feel sick but he couldn't think about not doing it. It was what ruled his being. He wanted respect and admiration. It was something that only being an officer could give him. With rank came friendship, trust, belonging. It seemed simple when it meant that everything he ever wanted was just a single exam away.

For him the system was all. The chain of command couldn't fail. Subordinates respected and admired their superiors. In return they were looked after, taught, made better. Like children, the lowest of the low were to be nurtured until they achieved their full potential. Officers traded love for responsibility.

Rimmer was proud, the type of proud where every loss of face was critically analysed and taken out on whomever caused it. Rimmer also knew in his heart that the person who stopped him from achieving anything he wanted to achieve was himself. He was the cack-handed master of his own destiny and he obeyed the system of command blindly because he wanted to. Every time he bent to the will of his superiors it was from his choice. He chose to follow what they said because it was the way things should be. If the chain of command became weak, there was no order. Without order, there was nothing. So he ran to fulfil their desires, each time his pride would be reassured that it was only till he rose to their level. He would be a good officer, he would rule justly and he would nurture his lesser men. He would be in command with efficiency and his peers and his men would love him.

Except he never rose that high. His first command, if you can command a group of cleaning staff, was disastrous. With no experience with power and nothing to guide him he had failed to deal with the lowliest of men. They had chewed him up and spat him out. He couldn't rule them, they ran along their own whims. They screwed up the system.

Lister was no different. He was the lemon juice in cream, the drunk who puked on state visits by the Queen, the guy who uses an epic foreign arts film as an excuse to make out with his girlfriend. He bucked the system at every turn, had no commitment, no drive, no motivation, no culture. He defied everything Rimmer ran his life along.

Why did he have to accept what he said? Why was the one person who he was certain on always being beneath him now his commanding officer? How did the scum at the bottom of the barrel of humanity have a higher rank than him? It was enough to sicken him.

And yet, it ran deeper. Yes he wanted revenge, eye stabbing, hand stomping, testicle removing revenge but at the same time he couldn't do that. Number one was because he didn't assault senior officers where he could help it but almost as importantly, he didn't want to do that to Lister. Oh, he hated his guts but he lost heart when it came down to it; actually plotting a way to get the skutters to set up an elaborate mechanism whereby an enormous box of lead weights tragically fell on to Lister's stupid head when he picked up his guitar was too much. He pitied Lister sometimes, when he would wake up at 3 in the morning to hear him whimper in his sleep. Nightmares about being alone in the universe that he'd rather die than admit to having. Whimpering * her * name as he flailed miserably on the bunk above, like some kind of giant smelly child. It was those times that Rimmer wished he were alive, to be able to tuck him back in after his nightmares, to reassure him that he was there and that everything would be….

What was he thinking? Tucking him in? Horribly underdeveloped and more ape-like than the average homo habilis he may be but he wasn't a child. And its not like Rimmer gave two short smegs about him. The man had ordered him to be as good as executed in a matter of hours. Why should he even care?

He stood up and arched his back as he yawned. Deep down he knew he didn't need to stretch, just like he knew he didn't have to breathe, but it was something that helped him feel alive. Near the beginning when he had been turned on he had caught himself not breathing. He was sitting in the dark in bed, Lister was off on one of his joy rides in the night, and thinking about where his life had gone wrong when he suddenly realised there was absolutely no noise. At all. None. It took him a while to realise it was part of the air conditioning's lapses; the time before the thermostat realises things are cooling down again. When it clicked on he breathed in again.

He hadn't been breathing in that silence. It had been over twenty minutes.

Back in the present he shook his head. This was all too weird for this time in the morning. He looked at the small bedside clock. 3:26am, less than 5 and a half hours to live. Morning shift change time was 9.00am.

Smeg.

This was so smegging typical, right when he had started thinking of coping with being dead here he was again, waiting for the chop. He felt like punching someone, really really really hard. Something he had never done but dreamed of doing all his life. He felt like lashing out against everything that was wrong with his life with all his weight and all his rage and all the power a man can drag screaming from the depths of his soul. And now he couldn't even do that. Lister was snoring noisily under him, having commandeered the 'big bunk'. It was a full on nasal cacophony, air entered his nose like a jet intake sunk in a swamp and exited like a snarl from a pig missing half a face. It wasn't pleasant. God, he wished he could just get a pillow, place it on his face and gently lean…

Damnit, if only he could sort his way through this. Disobeying Lister went against everything in his psyche. Running wasn't an option, there was nowhere to go. Holly just flipped the switch and he would be gone. So far his choices were pleading and begging like every other day in his life or he could die on his feet. Which still meant death.

Bollocks, try again.

He had to comply with what Lister wanted. He was going to order Rimmer to die.

Actually, not die. Not exactly. He wanted to turn Rimmer off. Rimmer would never be turned on again. Unless there was some catastrophic situation that would require intimate knowledge of early 20th century telegraph poles to save the ship from total annihilation, nobody would give the order to turn him on again.

So here was the new and freshly looked at situation: instead of being killed he was going to be turned off with no hope of being turned on again.

Bollocks.

He jumped out of the bunk and paced, his hands clenching and unclenching his pyjamas as his leg jiggled. Think boy, think….

But ordering him turned off didn't mean that he had to stay turned off. Unless he specifically stated it to Holly there was no reason he couldn't be turned back on again. A reboot. On and off. Lister didn't even have to notice. Lister orders him off and he would turn off, nothing stopped Rimmer from telling Holly beforehand that any order to turn Rimmer off was temporary and that he was to turn him back on again straight afterwards.

YES!

Wait, no. That wouldn't work either. Lister would pull rank and just tell Holly to turn him off permanently as soon as he saw that Rimmer kept coming back.

Bugger.

He sunk into the metal chair, his bottom through the seat before he caught himself. Tapping his legs he looked at the clock again. 3:27am. What to do? In the dark and doomed. Hopeless, friendless, alone, small, scared, bonehe…

WAIT, he could be bailed by a senior officer. Boot up anyone with higher rank than cook, tell them to promote him or demote Lister and then switch them…

One hologram at a time. Bugger.

Well maybe he could appear as Hollister like he did Kochanski and demote Lister and…

Nope, that would be too obvious.

Shitshitshitshitshitshit…

Rimmer's face rose from where it had sunk into his hands, a manic look about him. Kochanski. Lister's one pivot. If he pulled it off properly he could have her body again, get him to surrender control as he would be a senior officer of the Dwarf and pow, change back to gloat and point. But when did she need to intervene? And how?

There was a long silence as Rimmer concentrated, no longer breathing. Only the occasional snore of Lister and the hum of air conditioning was audible.

The clock ticked. The numbers fell and fell again on the tiny bedside clock, the red lines gleaming maliciously. Lister's snores stopped. Rimmer stood, rubbed his eyes and with a look determined enough to scare off a bison with went out to talk to Holly.


	4. Chapter 4

Dawn arrived on the Dwarf. Well technically it didn't, they were nowhere near any stars that could provide the effect of a rising sun casting a creeping light over the red metal landscape that was the enormous space freighter. The closest they got to a dawn was when Holly dozed off and the lights dimmed and they'd brighten when he woke up suddenly. But that withstanding, it was morning. Rimmer's last morning.

Lister sat in a seat in the Drive Room, not having seen Rimmer yet to apologise for last night. He remembered most of the gist of what he had said if not the actual words themselves and he longed to apologise to Rimmer. He was still being turned off but at least Lister could try and ease his own conscience. So he sat, his feet up on the central console of the drive room, facing the door, drinking a large coffee with a couple of fizzy thingys fizzled in to try and settle stomach. He had drunk a lot last night.

He knew that his queasiness had little if anything to do with the fact that he had drank enough to kill a person half his weight. He had had Olaf Peterson as a drinking buddy. No, he knew why he was feeling queasy. In his mind he could see a Rimmer on his knees, pleading for his life his hands clasping for Lister's legs and weeping his apologies for the miserable pitiful existence he had clung to for no apparent reason. Lister saw it in his mind and shuddered, hating what he was forced to become.

He sipped the lukewarm coffee and grimaced. As they said, all was fair in love and war.

He looked at his watch. 9:12. He knew that Rimmer classified morning as 9 unless he asked Holly to wake him then in which case morning was around 2ish, just in time for lunch. He tapped his feet; irritated that Rimmer didn't even have the decency to show up to his death on time.

"Holly, where is everybody?"

The bald head materialised on the screen by his feet with a look of disgust.

"That's disgusting that is. You could have at least put on a pair of socks."

"Where's Rimmer Hol?"

"I've never seen a hairy verucca before, that's going to give me nightmares about hobbits with leprosy now."

"Where is he Hol?"

"Oh, he's dictating a letter to one of the skutters."

"It better be his Will. Bring him here."

A very crumpled and tired Rimmer appeared in the Drive Room. His tie was undone. His eyes looked like they had been knocked into his head with snooker balls. He didn't have a pen.

Lister sat upright, concern in his eyes at the wreck that stood before him. The wreck waved and stood to attention.

"Sorry I was late sir. Had a lot of thinking to do."

Lister felt like telling him to go and neaten up. He suddenly noticed what looked like stubble on Rimmer's face. It was a very disturbing thought, the idea of Rimmer with a beard. Kochanski's face smiled at him within his head.

"I'm going to turn you off man. I told you as much last night but I wasn't very nice about it. But yeah, you know…"

He grinned. Rimmer did not.

"Permission to speak freely sir."

Lister looked suspiciously at him,

"Granted."

"Well, I don't sir. I don't know."

Lister stood up and walked up to the man.

"Have you ever loved Rimmer? Like really really loved someone? Loved someone so that even though there was absolutely no possible way of being with them you still see them everywhere?"

Rimmer looked into the depths of those almost black irises that bore into him. He didn't even flinch.

"Yes sir. More times than you can even conceive. In fact, every single time."

Lister was barely a foot away from him.

"Then you know why."

He turned his back on him and walked to face the console. Rimmer started to shake, the nervousness coming off him in waves.

"Holly. Turn him off."

He didn't even turn as Rimmer nodded fearfully and then blinked off.


	5. Chapter 5

Lister fell back heavily into the Captain's waiting chair in the Drive Room, like every tendon in his body had been cut simultaneously. He stared out into space, trying to figure out the enormity of what he had done. Stars a billion miles away blinked a morse-coded message of disgust at his baser instincts. How could he trick a man into being killed by pretending to outrank him and then, to piss insult onto injury, using his false superiority and the life force of the innocent man to bring his ex-girlfriend of three weeks back from the dead? It sounded like the synopsis of "Gestapo Warlock 4, The Return of Eva Braun". It sickened him. How could he kill Rimmer?

He brought his hands to his face, burying his eyes in the fleshy folds of his palms, the guilt crushing. Images of the rangy technician filled his brain; his immaculate uniform, his gorgeously rendered revision timetables, his eyebrow twitching in his rage. He mourned for the loss of a simple man who he had never understood, a man who had just one desire that he had never even tasted. God, he knew how that felt.

Well, used to know. Now he could almost touch it. The dreams of Fiji, the animals, the hotdog stand, Kochanski. Her face ablaze with happiness as she tried on amusingly shaped paper hats completely naked and grinning with pure bliss, the sunset streaming in a cascade of warm light warming them both as they lay back on the deep bed and just laughed together, unashamed of how he looked or felt or was. Just happy with her and all he had. Just happy.

The high pitched keening and the whispering scrape of sliding, polished heels announced the approaching Cat. Spinning on a pinhead the feline/human stopped abruptly with his body held rigid, bowing into the drive room. Looking up he gazed around the room, seeing only Lister and put on his top hat again. The deep red of the fabric of the hat matched the suit, the black shirt complementing it all. Lister applauded. The Cat scowled, somehow spoiling the effect, pulled out a travel iron and steamed the clothes he was standing in.

"What a waste of an amazing entrance. 4 hours grooming, preening, perming, waxing, trimming, shaving, stapling, freshening, snoozing and stretching all made pointless by the complete lack of any members of the female persuasion to see me and fall to my feet at the skill of my moves. Instead I get the moron banging his hands together. Hey you, feed me."

"I tell you every single smegging day Cat, there are no women on this ship. No other Cats, no nothing. Just me, you and Holly."

The Cat stopped ironing his sleeve, "What about the other monkey?"

Lister looked uncomfortable for a few seconds, thinking of the words.

Holly cut in before he could start with, "He's replacing Arnold with Kristine, his ex girlfriend."

Lister stared daggers at him before turning to the Cat, "Its not like that man. Rimmer wasn't getting on with the crew and as senior officer I decided that it was best that we got someone with more experience, team working skills and who could navigate us back to Earth. It's a very simple..."

"'Girlfriend' as in soft and tasty?"

Lister had to stop from rising and punching out the Cat.

"If you mean female, yes. But she's human and doesn't know you and will be disorientated from being revived. I think its best we all just let her acclimatise before leaping into anything."

The Cat put away the iron and stood with his hands on hips, his face that of a father trying to be patient with a wilful and stupid child.

"Listen bud, if she's female then I expect you to leave me to work my magic. If this is a female and her mind hasn't been badly affected by time spent hanging around with you then I'm sure she'll want to be spending every waking moment catering to my every desire. It's a burden on me I know but I owe it to all Ladies everywhere to be in peak condition. I can't have you stinking up the place and generally doing that thing you do."

Lister looked dazed,

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"Yeah, that thing. Stop talking, you'll throw me off my grove"

Lister did rise and got in front of the Cat before restraining himself, his hands instead of wringing his neck smoothed down the front of his suit. In a flash the Cat danced back and stared at him with disdain. Lister spoke soothingly,

"Look man. Just leave it. I know her; I'll greet her and show her to her quarters. This is not your concern. Just chill."

The Cat's expression never changed.

Lister turned back to Holly,

"Have you got Kochanski's disc Hol?"

The head turned to him and replied, "Rimmer handed it to one of the skutters. Said it would save you looking for it."

A twinge of guilt raced through Lister as Bob trundled in, a note attached to a shiny disc; large and shiny and circular, like an ancient CD. Taking it from his pincers he tapped Bob on the 'head', put the note in his back pocket and plugged the disc into the console on to the Captain's desk.

"Ok, it's loading Dave."

Lister swivelled his chair and began the longest two minute wait in his life.


	6. Chapter 6

The hologram loading process was not one of the most riveting shipboard operations. The complex programs involved to accurately emulate a human intellect and personality and an ability to react in real time so as to keep up the pretence of life was complicated to say the least.

The program booted up quicker in the Hologram Projection Suite which is where her image was compiling. The idea that he would need to wait the half-hour or so it would take in the lifts to just get down there was the only thing that kept Lister in his seat and not racing the Cat to the lifts. Holly would debrief her as he had done Rimmer about being dead and then project her into the drive room to meet the crew. Easy and simple, no guilt and he wouldn't have to explain why the smeg all of this was happening.

His hands shook because he needed a smoke so bad and he was about to light up before he realised that she hated it. Instead he got up and started pacing, the Cat watching all with an eager eye whilst he surreptitiously combed his eyebrow with a golden brush.

*_*_*_*_*_*_*

Rimmer's form began assembling itself in the Hologram Projection Suite as Holly booted him up from the disc in the Captain's computer.

One of the skutters began trundling about, preparing for the appearance of the bright form on the other side of the room. If there was a new hologram, it thought, then protocol should be observed in case it was someone actually important. Its little claw head straightened the arrangement of the boxes as its tiny circuits blipped and bleeped. The AI of the skutters was rudimentary because the implantation of Belief chips was too expensive for what was basically a remote control car with a spanner on and so they behaved based on primal AI instincts. This was basically a fixation on the acquisition of hardware, mostly in the form of the next screwdriver head attachment. This meant that discipline was simple to maintain and as long as you kept an eye on them in case they skipped off work details to illegally gamble for triple-threaded butterfly-wing nuts, it was a workable system. Philbert was no exception to this role, he was fixated on metal goodness as much as any of the others, but he believed that by cleaning up and presenting himself now he may stand in good stead with the new crew and possibly have an easier ride of it. They'd know who to call when they needed to throw out their boxes of nuts. Ol' Philly. He would have beamed with glee if he had a mouth.

As the tachyons amalgamated Philbert rolled forward and straightened up to his full height. The little wheeled box started to shake from the strain at holding the claws of his head rigidly at the angles dictated by his barely remembered factory settings. In theory, all skutters were to present themselves in this manner to those superior to them but it was a largely ignored piece of etiquette as that would mean they would stand to attention for everything on board except the other service droids, the lowlier vending machines, the cleaning equipment and the technicians. But Philbert had decided that now was a special occasion, he had heard that Holly had gotten round to bringing the fat-man himself back online. It was his long awaited chance to impress the management, the head honcho, el Capitaino.

The background hum that was the calculations of a hundred cognitive processes and thousands of emotional nuances screeched to a crescendo. The light built up to a dazzling level, blinding if anybody in the room had actually had eyes. Philbert suppressed the aching in some of the hydraulics that held his neck up, the strain making him sweat WD40.

The light and the humming died down to reveal Rimmer, his nose twitching slightly as he began stretching, checking to see if his limbs worked.

Philbert looked up and saw who it was. Turning he accelerated to the nearest wall and stopped just as he reached it, using his momentum to bring his 'head' crashing against the surface. He then reversed back slowly, paused, and accelerated again. He continued to do this for a few minutes as Rimmer experimentally stretched out his limbs and then noticed the strange blue box beating itself up.

"Holly, what the hell is that skutter doing?"

Philbert faced the nearest monitor bearing Holly's visage and started whistling in binary. Holly looked down and then at Rimmer and then addressed the skutter,

"Don't blame me for this. It's those damn things with circulatory systems and nervous systems and platonic systems that order me about."

Philbert whistled some more.

"Look, it's not like I enjoy this anymore than you do. I'm just doing my job."

The irate skutter gave off a passing stream of low whistles and drove through Rimmer to leave the room, swaying its dented head and snapping its claws at the others, who seemed to be sniggering.

Holly shook his head at Rimmer, "Skutters eh? Just blame something that breathes for anything and they'll snap it up like that." He winked, Rimmer guessed correctly that this was because he couldn't click.

"What the smeg happens now Holly? Where's Lister?"

"He's up in the drive room. He told me to brief Kochanski about everything and then 'beam her up' there when I'm done. His words not mine. Been watching too much James Bond if you ask me…"

Rimmer stood in a corner, rubbing his eyes murmuring to himself, "Born in Glasgow, spent 14 years in Cyberschool, pony called Trumper, likes peaches and ice cream, went to Io house, was a fork in a school play, Glasgow, cybersc..…"

"Um, Arn?"

Rimmer snapped up, his gaze burning at Holly's monitor.

"Arn, you went to Io house and was a fork."

Rimmer swore and kicked through a box.

"I'm in deep, hot, watery smeggy smeg. Learning about a dead woman who I spoke to once three million years ago in enough detail that I can convince a man who has been infatuated to the point of obsessiveness over her that I _am _her in the next 15 minutes is insane. I can't memorise her entire smegging life in a quarter of an hour. Bollockssing smegging crappy smeg. How much of an underhanded, evil advantage is Cyberschool anyway? No wonder she was an officer. 'Oh, my qualifications to be a Navigation Officer on board a space ship making me responsible for over two thousand lives? Oh, errrrm I grew up in the Gorbals in an artificial reality girls school.' What a bitch."

Rimmer fell unceremoniously into a sitting position, facing the wall, massaging his temples. He couldn't possibly learn all he had to learn to fool Lister he was Kochanski. Even if he had a thousand years and all the chemical learning aid substances possible he'd learn nothing that would help. Even by some miracle he could have all her knowledge on tap within his brain it wouldn't help. He had to learn all there was to know about her, think of how she would react and then use her phrasing and words and react emotionally the same way.

He had read through all the transcripts of her conversations with Lister and it was all mush. He talked; she would nod and listen like he was some dreadful chore of a problem child. Apart from their physical intimacy there was little reason she cared or even noticed he existed. If it was her brought back here she would probably not even remember him. She flirted with everyone, and like most 23rd century women wasn't shy about what she got up to on her time off. She must have been leading on half the flight deck, using her come-hither eyes and full lips, so full of promise to entrance the foolish so…….

What made her so hard to understand? Why are women so different from men? What made them tick? Tick, tick, tick.

"Arn, you may have to go up in a minute."

Bollocks.

A huge grin slowly spread over Rimmer's face. Everything was clear. He knew exactly what he needed to do. He stood to attention and swivelled neatly on the spot to face Holly.

"Ok Hol. Give me Kochanski's body and voice."

Holly looked curiously at the now fully-confident man, his grin making him look like he had escaped from a moron convention. He shook his head slowly and Rimmer suddenly lost a lot of height and gained a lot of hair. Kochanski/Rimmer grunted at the shock of it. Everything was now so much lower down and his back ached a bit more. He tried to work out why. He looked down. Enlightenment dawned and the grin returned.

"Ok Hol," he said, "sorry, I'll call you Holly in that condescending way like you were just a machine. Holleeeey..."

"Condescending? Rimmer?" his statement couldn't have been more sarcastic if it was delivered by a ten year old boy followed by the word 'Not!'

Rimmer smiled, giddy at how close he was to experiencing the supremely mysterious. He was beginning to understand the unexplainable, to actually know what women saw and thought. Well, he was almost there. Only one thing missing…

"Holleey, can you make me have hormones?"

Holly blinked.

"You what?"

"I want hormones like a woman's Holly. I want to react like a woman would, silly."

Holly couldn't restrain a huge smirk. He rolled his eyes and Rimmer almost fell over as a storm of emotion whirled up within him. He felt completely awful and that the world was all wrong. What was strange though was that he suddenly realised the way to solve this, all the things that made the world awful and unfair, everything. It basically seemed to involve large amounts of chocolate and shoes. He staggered, a hand shooting out to try and support himself, annoyed that no-one was there to catch him.

"What the hell have you done to me?"

Holly grinned, "I made you a woman, boyo."

The world around Rimmer blurred and he found himself in the Drive Room.


	7. Chapter 7

Holly had never actually projected a female hologram before, his understanding of the differences between the male and female physiology was of course part of his programming, but the grind of untold millennia had shot his circuitry to bits. Was what he recalled about the delicate hormonal balance, the cycles and rhythms both circadian and over longer periods correct? He couldn't be sure. Maybe it was more complicated than just getting the program to chuck in some extra oestrogen and the odd bit of dopamine. Maybe the whole gaff would be blown but it couldn't be that difficult, could it?

Holly would have shrugged if he had shoulders. He guessed it would be a giggle finding out.

*_*_*_*_*_*_*

Lister looked up and blinked. The hammering of his heart within its now too small chest cavity was almost too painful to bear but also felt too far away to be important. He felt weak at the knees. His mouth was dry which was good because if it wasn't he would probably be drooling. His mind was a mad scatter of thought, he felt drunk but alert; like when you blow up too many party balloons at once. He started to stand then thought he shouldn't be too forward so he stopped. He didn't sit back down because that would make her seem inferior, like a job interviewee. He didn't carry on rising because then she could see he'd changed his mind. He tried to play it cool, half raised with his hands on the seat and his arse in the air.

Smeg.

The Cat was already up and across the room as if to bestow a kiss upon the hand of the newly materialised Kochanski. The strength of purpose in his stride made it blatantly clear as to his intentions and how well they would be fulfilled, preferably for the next 4 hours on every available surface. Lister could only watch as horror filled him to the core, his rival already most of the way across the drive room and his prize in sight.

Lister stood, feet already beginning to start a death-defying perilous run and dive forward. The Cat grinned and swept low, raising his immaculately manicured fingers to touch their beautifully pale and delicate counterparts owned by the gorgeous brunette his eyes were roving over. Kochanski's eyes widened as she realised his intent and her hand leapt back, as if burnt.

Lister began to let out a whoop of joy before realising how incredibly juvenile and downright obsessively focussed on her every move he was sounding. Instead he choked it down as it came out of his mouth, an ecstatic coughing fit that left him nearly doubled over. The Cat recovered by simply using the sweep to pull out a comb and tidy his hair, Kochanski looked on and smiled nervously.

As the spluttering slowed Lister looked up and grinned. There was an awkward pause filled only with the whisper of the comb's tines as they parted the Cat's immaculate hair. Slowly Lister realised this was one of those awkward silences and that it was time for him to explain stuff. Time to be friendly.

"Ermmm….." he began before the Cat leapt in once more.

"You're a female."

Kochanski answered slowly, her eyes filled with doubt.

"Yeeeeeees…." the barest hint of a question mark on the end.

The Cat grinned, standing in the most relaxed position possible while remaining upright and lowered his eyelids lazily.

"I see you aren't doing anything right now. It goes without saying I'm an amazing looking guy. Let's just get you out of those nasty, khaki pants and…"

"Cat, I think Krissy may want to talk a bit first."

Lister wedged his two pence in forcefully as he stood up, seeing from a mile off where the Cat was bulldozing the conversation to. Kochanski didn't look as if she wanted to speak ever again but did; she looked terrified and unsure of anything.

"Its ok chaps, I don't want to say whatever anything I mean nothing now."

Lister looked slightly confused but tried again.

"Hello Kris. Its ermm a pleasure nice to I mean you're lovely and you're back..... Yeah, Red Dwarf...… Three Million Years, eh?.....sorry."

As he saw Kochanski nod, more puzzled and frightened looking than ever, Lister acknowledged that he possibly should have given the great speech welcoming Kochanski back about 30 seconds ago. He then realised that he already had. Strange; in his head it had sounded a lot longer. More elegant. More likely to entice her back into his bed.

Cat watched the proceedings with an incredibly puzzled look on his face. Shaking his head to clear it of the stupidness that seemed to surround him like a black fog spraying out of these monkeys' mouths he spake;

"I don't know what the hell either of you is talking about but I definitely know that hamster breath shouldn't be here and the babe hasn't had the chance to fully appreciate how amazing this body is beneath these clothes…"

"Cat, shut the smeg up."

"Listen, monkey. I don't have time for this. I have to eat three more times and nap four times before this afternoon's snooze and at this rate me and the female will only have sex for about four hours."

As the Cat began to lick his lips in anticipation of the thought, Lister swung at him wildly. The fist would have connected with the Cat's cheek if he hadn't whipped back his head, letting it swish past his perfect nose. Visibly shaken, the Cat straightened and backed away, standing on his tiptoes with his arms spread.

"I'm huge now, boy. Don't make me make you more ugly!"

Lister raised his fists threateningly

"Smeg off! Smeg right off before I rip a hole in every single suit you own!"

The Cat glared and hissed, visibly shaken by the threat. He moonwalked backwards, shooting a smouldering look at Kochanski as he slinked silently out of the drive room.

Lister slowly turned and looked at Kochanski. It was hard to tell who looked most uncomfortable. Lister shrugged,

"Yeah, that was the Cat. He's a….. well a sort of….. kind of an errm Cat type thing. Y'know….. How are you?"

"Yeah, Holly said."

"Oh. About the Cat or how you…"

"The Cat."

"Oh."

The thrum of engines and air conditioning continued unbroken except the occasional scraping sound of Lister scratching under his deerstalker. Standing at opposite ends of the drive room they both fidgeted as the seconds dragged by.

"Ummm, can I go now?"

Lister started, surprised by the sudden noise. He quickly nodded,

"Sure, I'll sort you a room."

He stared fully at her. The soft curves of her body only subtly hinted at behind the khaki shirt and trousers, her hair curved up into that gravity-defying sweep that he had yearned for weeks to ask her how she did. Except she had died.

"Actually, the whole ship is empty. I'm still in my old room but without Rimm….. Yeah, I'm in my old space. So….the whole ship."

Kochanski bared a half smile, "I guess there's no point going to my old room. I guess you need a new room mate…. I mean, its hard to find company out here, right?"

She smiled fully at him. Lister had to grab one of the chairs, the fingers digging into the leatherette as that smile seemed to tug on a string of light along his spine, making his legs tremble. He gulped in his missed breath,

"Yeah…. That's no, no no problem at all…. You still remember the way?"

She grinned wickedly,

"I always know where our room is Dave."

The wink she shot at him made him have to shuffle discreetly behind the scanner chair to shift his belt. He matched her grin with one of his own and with a bow extended his hand to her. She looked at it and smiled, walking past him to the door. With his lowered perspective he followed the delicious sway of her hips as she left the scanner room, licking his lips as he scurried after her.


	8. Chapter 8

Rimmer left the drive room at a shaky jog. He was stumbling down the corridor like a newly born foal, horribly unused to his new hips. He leant against a wall, his chest heaving, a million thoughts storming through his brain. He ran his hand along his head, trying to get a hold of himself.

What the hell was he doing? Flirting with Lister? He shuddered.

His hands caught in the length of his hair, catching him unawares. Damn woman and her stupid giant hair. He yanked, unable to free his fingers in the tangles he had made. His hair was a mess, his chest ached and he felt so angry, disgusted, upset and ready to eat half his weight in tinned peaches.

"Can I help at all?"

He didn't need to open his eyes or look up to know that there would be a grinning face with those huge eyes looking down at him. He thought it was worth a go anyway, just in case he was wrong and it was just his hormone fuelled crazy woman imagination.

He looked up to see the last Liverpudlian in the Universe looking down his blouse.

"Lister?"

Lister shifted his gaze. Rimmer saw those enormous baby browns dilate, turning the brown black. He swallowed.

"Umm, I think I'll go. I mean I'm fine."

"You know, you look good when you run."

Rimmer looked down, shocked.

"You look good when you blush as well."

He stood, facing Lister.

"You're very fresh aren't you?"

Lister grinned, "Can't help it, you're the first woman I've seen in 3 million years. You look amazing. I've said that haven't I? It's just that, I mean its like, wow. I've missed you."

As soon as the words were out a look of distress crossed his face. Rimmer blinked rapidly, trying to work out what the hell was going on. He just had to say something,

"Me too."

The look of relief on Lister's face was endearing. Rimmer blinked again, he hadn't even thought of the word 'endearing' in years. It must be the hormones.

"Shall I walk you to our chamber, Krissie darling?"

Rimmer started at the last word, whipping his head round to see Lister offering his arm, his face filled with joy and barely concealed excitement.

"Don't call me that."

Lister's face seemed to fall inward, the props of hope holding it up snapping under the force of the curt retort. Rimmer felt a mix of triumph and pity as his brain scrambled for purchase on the greasy slope this conversation was becoming;

"You have to remember Lister, I am an officer and a gentlem..woman. A lady. I am your superior and as such I expect a level of respect from you. I am not some harlot you've conjured up from the computer to have your sticky fun with. I think it would be best instead of going to your room that I went to the room next door for now. It'll give you a chance to get a hold of yourself."

Rimmer forced his way past, his hand pushing through Lister's arm as he strode off down the corridor leaving Lister to stand dumbfounded and watch him go.

*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*

Rimmer got round the corner and got Holly to tell him where Kochanski's room was. Getting lost a few times on the way, he finally made it and ran to the mirror, trying to work out where this giant mess was going. He almost screamed when he saw the short, brunette, chesty woman who gazed back. Slowly, he raised his left hand. The woman in the mirror raised her right which made sense as she was a reflection. He turned to look at the hand, its delicate and thin fingers and long nails all alien. Taking his right hand he pinched the cloth of his blouse on his shoulder. It felt just like his shirt in terms of material. He grazed his fingers along before stopping abruptly, feeling something weird under….

Putting a hand slowly into his blouse he felt along the strap of his bra.

What the smeg?

Unbuttoning the front of his blouse he examined the whole contraption, feeling where all the straps and lace went. Putting his hands behind his back he found the straps at where they crossed. The way some maniac had come up with this tiny thing, material lashed together and with some little metal hooks it looked like pure evil to him. Jesus Christ, he'd never be able to take this damn thing off. It was hard enough when you could see the damn thing in front of you never mind behind your back.

He looked forward to see a gorgeous woman leaning forward, her blouse teasingly open and her bountiful cleavage inviting and deep. He froze and straightened, following with his eyes as the woman did also.

Smeg. It was only him. "Only" though now carried the dull thud of understatement. He was not "only". Not anymore. He was beautiful. His hand stroked his hair distractedly, slowly. It was soft and he could imagine it smelling like lavender or coconut. He felt warm and tingly and...

Was he getting aroused by himself?

He shook his head and buttoned up his blouse, quickly and with those long gorgeous fingers quivering. What the smeg was wrong with him? He felt like he was unravelling at the seams. Looking at his reflection, his eyes seemed to shine, he was on the verge of tears. God did this woman never stop crying?

A flash of gold in the mirror heralded the arrival of the Cat onto the corridor outside. A panic gripped Rimmer, his blouse was askew and barely buttoned, his chest half hanging out. The Cat entering the room now would be an unmitigated disaster. He had heard from the Cat repeatedly and in enough graphic detail what exactly he intended to do to as soon as he encountered a woman. Apparently, Cat literature had a vast repository of knowledge on the subject of sex and the Cat was very keen to explore it. The sight of an attractive young brunette, bent over in a state of undress would do nothing to stop that pile of immaculately groomed testosterone from rushing in and running his warm, strong hands over the beautiful peaks and troughs of his tense, trembling bod…..

"Holly! Dress me!"

There was a blurring around Rimmer as he turned to face the doorway.

The Cat stopped, his long fingered hands gripping the sides of the door frame. He was stretched out on his toes, arching his back to fill the space and tensing his muscles, the form fitting shimmering gold body suit displaying his physique exquisitely.

'Why, hello female. I just wanted to let you know I am feeling very sexy.'

Rimmer's mouth hung open as his eyes raked up and down across the Cat's unsubtly displayed body. He wasn't sure if it was the shock or the kind of strange feeling in his gut of what may have been the onset of disgust but he couldn't take his eyes off the beautifully arranged form before him. The Cat obviously spent a great deal of time exercising when away from the others to be able to have the rigid power in his arms, the well defined chest, the washboard abdominals, the generously endowed pac..…

Rimmer found that he was staring up into the dark predatory eyes of the Cat, his hand half raised as if to touch the shimmering material of the suit across the chest. The Cat's canines flashed as his face split into an appropriately Cheshire like grin and he leaned forward. Rimmer could imagine his musky scent, could just hear his low purring breath over the hammering of his own heart in his chest. The hollow thumping seemed to fill his brain and he felt light headed as the Cat bent down, his lips parting as he leaned in toward him.

"I see you managed to…" started Lister, trailing off when he realised what the golden suited Cat was in the middle of attempting.

Rimmer was startled and leapt back as if burned. He felt sick to his gut, unsure if his lips had actually…

The Cat's smouldering gaze continued to be fixed on Rimmer's eyes before slowly breaking the gaze as he swept his eyes up and down, examining every inch of Kochanski's body. He smiled more broadly and was about to step forward when Lister's hand fell heavily on his shoulder.

He seemed not to notice it as he continued to move forward but the grip tightened. The Cat suddenly whipped his head round, fixing a stare on the offending limb, the shining material deforming under the press of the fingers. The Cat growled deep in his throat and hissed.

"Monkey, take it off or I'll feed you each finger one by one"

Lister smiled apologetically at Rimmer as he pulled the now snarling Cat into the corridor. There was a sound of yowling as the door slid shut, leaving Rimmer staring off into the distance and trying to calm himself down. His knees felt week, his mouth dry. What was wrong with this woman? It was just the Cat, he wasn't even human. He was a selfish, lazy waste of space without two brain cells to rub together. Flashy clothes wrapping up a shallow package of lean, beautiful, intense, pack….

What was wrong with him?

Rimmer realised that it was now quiet outside. He thought about having a peek to see what was going on when the door slid over, revealing a dishevelled Lister, his shirt missing a few buttons and his plaits loose. The Cat was nowhere to be seen.

"Yeah…. that was the Cat again. He's a …. Cat type thing. He was bothering you wasn't he, I mean he was bothering you, wasn't he? Was he bothering you? I'll bring him back if he wasn't bothering you, are you bothered, shall I get him back…"

Lister stuttered to a halt

"It's fine."

"…Well, since you're new back to the Ship do you want to do anything? Go anywhere? Anything?"

Rimmer felt confused, tired and weak from the emotional last few minutes. He couldn't work out why it was so tiring; it had only been 15 minutes since he was turned on, feeling so crazily confident and full of beans. His emotions had been up and down more times than a Titan hooker when the Navy was in town. Maybe he was unwell. Lister continued to stare lovingly into those beautiful eyes, yearning for an answer, any answer when all that was forthcoming was silent.

"Oh, sorry, it's just all been a bit much. It's lovely to see you and be back and all. It's just a lot to take in… maybe I'll just have a sit down for a bit?"

Lister nodded slowly and dared himself to smile a bit. Ambiguous, he thought, but not an outright 'no'.

"That's brilliant. You do that. Sit down. Be cool, relax. I'll go….do….I'll go"

Lister looked awkward for a bit, realised he was looking awkward and so attempted to nonchalantly slouch. Realising he was just slouching he suddenly snapped up and waved and backed out the room, grinning and shrugging and waving and not sure what the hell was going on.

Rimmer raised his hand and waved back as Lister backed out into the hallway and wandered off, looking dazed. Rimmer dropped his head into his hands and rubbed his temples, willing himself to just stop feeling so weird when the sound of rapidly returning feet sounded.

Oh smeg, don't let it be the Cat again. He wasn't sure if this stupid tart could cope with another five minutes with that quivering pile of testosterone without doing something Rimmer would never ever forgive himself for.

Lister's big cheeks poked around the door, wearing a massive grin.

"Dinner tonight ok? My quarters. I've got all the cooking stuff set up in there, I'm not just saying that so I can have an excuse to get you….."

"Sounds… good?"

Lister grinned even wider, "By the way, love the dress"

As Lister skipped out into the corridor, Rimmer looked down at the tight form-fitting black cocktail dress and almost passed out. By the time he looked up, Lister was gone, the sound of almost girlish giggling drifting down the hall.

"Holly!!!"


	9. Chapter 9

Holly was quite pleased with the way things were going. Most of his time now was filled with his little projects. He had been attempting the assimilation of all of human knowledge and complete his comprehensive understanding of the human psyche by reading all of their books. True almost all books written were complete rubbish, it amazed him how people believed that because they were famous for having multiple breast enlargements that other people would like to read fictional stories they had come up with.

The mapping of the entire Universe in its intricate detail was another thing he decided to give a bash. It wasn't nearly as interesting as it should have been as most of it was black nothingness.

His new idea was to decimalise music but he knew that too was doomed to disappointment, it already looked like the physics involved in constructing the enormous instruments would stop that one in its tracks.

Ultimately diverting (and disappointing) as all of these things were, his grand purpose was always the survival of the human race in the form of David Lister. To keep him from going horribly insane from loneliness and "going outside and maybe taking some time" he had turned on the hologram of what seemed like the person who would give him the will to keep going. Rimmer.

It seemed like an odd choice, even for a computer drifting toward peculiar, and sometimes he wondered if it had been the right decision. Of course Dave would have thought that the best person to bring back would have been Peterson, his drinking buddy, his best friend. What Dave always forgot that Peterson was alive, it was what was what made him the crazy Dane, the Ginger Viking, the life and soul of a non stop party that he was the only one mad enough to be at. What Holly knew was that Peterson didn't have the psychological strength to be a creature without sensation, one of the dead. Rimmer, somehow, did.

Holly had never quite 'got' Rimmer. When Holly was created for the purposes of running a giant floating city, with its own prison, research laboratories and whatever facilities were deemed necessary to entertain a few thousand cooped up miners for years at a time, he was required to interact and advise every single person on board as required. He could conduct hundreds of conversations at once and with instantaneous access to the personal information and psychological profiles of everybody on board he could understand them all, inside out. What made them tick, what wound them up, how to prick a swollen head if he needed to. He may be hurtling head first down that soaped-up slope into full blown computer senility but still he had a feeling he had never understood Rimmer, even when he was brilliant.

As much as Rimmer lied on his entrance forms when he entered the Space Corps over twelve years before his death, most of the blanks had been filled in since then and Holly pretty much understood most of the ways Rimmer defined himself. He had his hideously unreal life goals, his resolute will to attain the impossible. Rimmer couldn't understand why it was impossible; all of the reasons he gave himself for his constant failures were wrong, but his determination was formidable. Rimmer had the will to live, even if he was dead.

It was in action now. Holly could see him stumbling about and cursing in the Sleeping quarters, trying to balance in the kitten heels and the slinky cocktail dress and muttering to himself. Holly had told him he couldn't work out how to change his clothes back and so he would have to just lump it.

Almost as much of a fulfilling task it was to complete his little projects, nothing gave Holly as much joy as human interaction and their determination to survive. He grinned to himself and waited to see how this one would pan out.

*_*_*_*_*_*_*

Rimmer looked across the table at the mess that was David Lister. The Muggs Murphy T-shirt complete with only 2 hardly-identifiable yellow stains, his green combats, his plaits held in what looked like a dark brown rubber band. It was obvious that he'd made an effort. He'd shaved, doused himself in what smelt like a cross between Listerene and White Spirit and his eyes were deep holes that sunk into space itself, dark and brooding and with the sparkle of a distant star trapped deep…..

Rimmer broke his gaze and looked down at his empty plate. Stupid stupid stupid, dreamily staring into his eyes like… a something. What was with this stupid woman? He snuck a glance up to see Lister grinning, bemused. The smug goit, thinking he had half got his leg over already. Boy, did he have a surprise coming.

"So Dave…"

His head snapped up, Rimmer could almost see his ears prick up.

"What is this amazing surprise you insisted I just had to see?"

Lister grinned and tapped the side of his nose. When a look of puzzlement crossed the incredibly beautiful face before him he laughed and sauntered over to the lower bunk. He swivelled, put one hand to the corner of the blanket and paused for dramatic effect. Rimmer saw the large bulge on the bottom bunk as he had entered the room and assumed it was where he had piled all the crap that was usually lying about everywhere. On the bottom bunk. His bunk. He could feel his irritation rising. The gimp was desecrating his memory. Him, dead twice!

The blanket shot back to reveal a stainless steel tureen type thing. Lister looked as chuffed as a poodle standing next to a foot long turd. Rimmer looked blank. Lister grinned again and grabbed the lid.

"I know how much you like Italian stuff like the opera and pasta and scooters and things so I made..." he removed the lid with a flourish "kebabs."

Sitting in their little steel basin were 3 surprisingly appetising looking shish kebabs, sprinkled with green curling bits of small leaves, mint or coriander, and a slice of lemon. Rimmer was actually quite impressed, but now it was his turn to reveal a sly smile.

"That's very sweet of you Dave." He lingered on the 'sweet', calculated to sound identical to every time he had heard it; delivered in a near monotone but with an effort arriving at about the 'swee' and tailing off. As he heard it he congratulated himself, a true woman comment.

Lister's face lost itself for a moment before he recovered.

"Ah, see. I know strictly speaking Kebab's aren't Italian but its close. I mean it's all the same down there really. You know, Olive oil, Tight Trousers, Mustach…"

He looked down as realisation dawned.

"You can't eat."

"No Dave."

The silence held. Lister's shoulders shook slightly. For a moment Rimmer thought that Lister was crying. Just as it was getting past amusing and into being uncomfortable he lifted his head and grinned.

"That's ok, I always used to eat more than you could anyway."

Rimmer winced at the force of grinning that was going on, feeling uncomfortable again. The silence continued as Lister placed the tureen carefully on the table. He raised his plate. He very deliberately paused and then took the smaller of the three little tubes of meat. The only sounds above the white noise of engine and air-recyc were the clink of metal on metal as the fork manoeuvred into the meat and the laboured wheeze that was Lister's breathing. He placed the kebab onto his plate. He took his place at the table. He cracked open a beer, its hissing gas sounded mocking as it escaped into the room. He raised it up as a toast and slurped it down.

"Its not easy being dead"

Lister spluttered,

"Sorry?"

Rimmer looked at him fixedly,

"Its not easy being dead. I don't think you've ever truly appreciated what its like"

Lister tried grinning. It faltered and he had to replace it with a look of exaggerated concern;

"Look, Krissie. I know what I've done is stupid. It's basically unforgivable. All I wanted to do was show you how….. ace it is to have you back."

"Number 1, I hate kebabs. They're the desecration and poisoning of good meat. Number 2, you can't cook for smeg. I know you're a _chef_ now but come on, you are atrocious at cooking. But point number 3, worth a point on its own, I'm dead and all I want is to eat and drink and it's like you're sitting there and gloating."

Rimmer realised he was up and screeching now. The righteous fury burned within him and he was letting forth all of his frustration and anxiety on this little, wounded figure huddled over his kebab like a filthy secret revealed.

Lister swallowed. He put down his beer and stood.

"Krissie, I know this is tough. Really. I've imagined what it would be like to be a hol… in your situation. I guess I just didn't think it through."

His words were soothing and his gaze so earnest that Rimmer could feel his anger diminishing. His mind was churning, the constant reminders were piling on so that all Rimmer wanted to do was beat nine kinds of crap out of the dumpy smegger opposite for the next four hours but his rage had piddled away like so much water down the sink. Can this woman not make up her mind for a minute?

"I can't believe what would possess you to cook for me…"

Lister smiled, pressing on,

"Do you remember coming back to your quarters after you had smuggled me into Parrots?"

Rimmer thought about this. After Parrots… there were a few transcripts he'd read deep into last night about what they had talked about that had made him so .….

"That wasn't the time you did that thing with the spray cream and the…"

"No! I mean, no Krissie. The other time. You said you wanted to be like a normal couple. Like we could go to a restaurant and order tartar steak or Szechuan noodles instead…"

"…of chicken soup." Rimmer finished.

Lister grinned broader,

"Yeah, so I said that if we were back on Earth I would sweep you off to my farm on Fiji and we wouldn't need to ever have chicken soup ever again."

Lister looked proud again. Rimmer was quite impressed with himself as well, he seemed to have learned ad verbatim a conversation he had had three million and a half of a year ago. Maybe it was the threat of immanent death that made him remember facts. If only he could get someone to threaten him with a double barrelled shotgun next time he sat the Astro Navigation Exam. He realised he was still standing and embarrassed, he sat again.

Lister put his plate aside and placed his hands in front of him, his palms up. Instinctively Rimmer's hands drifted towards his, hesitantly. He stopped and pulled back,

"Why bring me back Dave? Why now?"

Lister sighed and pulled his hands back.

"Holly brought back Rimmer. For some crazy reason he thought that he would keep me sane."

"Am I keeping you sane?"

Lister laughed,

"I've never been so nervous. Krissie, we never had a chance to really make a go of it. I mean, there was all that stuff back then with Tim and …"

"Why are you doing this all Dave? I'm dead. I've been dead for millions of years. What is it all about?"

Lister gaped, mouth open. He shook his head and took a drink,

"Christ, I'm not smegging drunk enough for this. Krissie, I love you. I always have, I always will. I know it's hard, I know it'll be difficult but if we want this, it can work. We've got a long time to just…"

"How?"

"Sorry?"

Rimmer was shaking, his eyes cast down

"How can you make it work? I'm dead, I can't touch, I can't feel, I'm just a shell. There's nothing here. I'm a program on a computer, how do I even know it's me? All I am, all I'm reduced to is a mind scan done millions of years ago. The dust that's actually me is floating around a star trillions of miles away. All I have to look forward to for the rest of eternity is stupid smegging grey corridors and electric lights and…"

Rimmer got up and tried to stride off, slipping on the stupid shoes, this stupid beautiful woman's mascara all over her stupid face. His bloody smegging mouth running off.

He could feel Lister behind him,

"We'll do something. We're heading back to Earth. We can see how things go. No pressure. It'll be…"

"No Pressure? You're the last man alive in the entire Universe. I can't get away from you! I can't believe that the last person alive had to be..…"

Rimmer knew it was a mistake as soon as he screamed it out. Lister stopped in his tracks, the reassuring hand on the way to his shoulder frozen in mid-air.

"Sorry Dave, you didn't deserve that. I just have no idea what we're going to do. What are we going to do for the rest of eternity? Head back to Earth? That'll be three million years away. We'll be dead by then. Well, you will be. I've been dead for…"

"Krissie, shush"

Lister's arms came round Rimmer, trying to hold the body he had missed for millions of years and make it better. Rimmer stepped through his enfolding limbs and turned to face him.

"Well?"

Lister sighed and dropped his arms by his side.

"I don't know."

They looked at each other, the kebabs gently cooling.

"I am willing to find out with you Krissie, together. We can head anywhere, hang around for a bit, just see how it goes. We can just live, get on with our lives, this is where we are now and just see how it goes now that we're here."

Rimmer looked down and leaned forward, holding himself upright against Lister's chest. Lister held his arms around the small brunette, feeling stupid and lost holding himself and his arms up around nothing.

Rimmer started and pulled himself away, brushing sticky black tears off his face. He smiled apologetically and giggled.

"There you are. I love it when you smile Krissie"

Rimmer stopped smiling.

"So, Chef Lister. Back to Dinner?"

Lister laughed,

"Don't call me Chef. I can't cook anything apart from kebabs. I've exhausted my repertoire of meals in one evening. Last time I was in a kitchen I ended up starting four fires. I just wanted some ice cream…."

"How did you pass the exam?"

Lister sat down on the bottom bunk and smiled

"I didn't, I just told Rimmer I had."

Rimmer scowled, the snarl looked wrong on Kochanski's face and it showed; Lister visibly recoiled.

"You bastard!"

"Hey, you didn't know what he was like, he drove me nuts! He wouldn't let me get …."

"How could you turn off…. I can't believe you, you lied to me. I don't even recognize you."

Lister's mouth hung open. He spread his hands and tried again,

"I'm only human Krissie. I missed you. I had to do whatever I could to get you back. You are all that's keeping me going. I can't bear an eternity apart from…."

"Don't give me that smeg Lister. You killed me Lister. Only you."

Rimmer was up and pointing now, the frustration boiling over into Vitriol. Lister spluttered;

"It was Rimmer's job to fix the drive plates; he was the one who caused the accident."

"Where the hell were you? In Stasis for some smegging moggy. You got caught for some stupid crime, picking up a damn stray in a greasy, seedy pit of a planet for no good reason and getting chucked in the slammer. You ballsed up your life and you've made this hell and what is the worst, the great big cock up of it all is that you are dragging me in to this as well. I would choke you if I could only…."

"Why are you doing this Krissie? You're my world and I can't ….."

"You're nothing to me Lister. You are a pathetic slob with no drive, no will to do anything with your life but at least I thought you had a shred of honour. You kill a man for nothing but some stuck up tart who would never remember you. You are…"

"Rimmer?"

Lister was up now, quickly and with murderous rage in his eyes. Rimmer flinched but held his ground and met him stare for stare. Lister's hands were grasping at his sides, looking for a neck that he couldn't wring.

"How dare you wear her face like some smegging pair of underpants! You're treating her like smeg. For the love of Christ, you're smegging unbelievable! You would parade around as my dead girlfriend for frigging shits and giggles! After all this time I would have thought that you would begin to understand what…."

"Understand? I understand plenty miladdo. You were going to kill me! You would never turn me back on, not in a million years, not in three million years. Face it, you're no different from me."

Lister shook with the effort of not erupting in an orgy of violence, tearing chunks off the small woman in front of him. No, not woman, the low snake, the giant worm, the dead thing which had made him miserable for years.

"You take that back."

The beautiful face split in a horrible parody of Rimmer's grin and put its hands behind its back, warming to its subject now.

"I see it now, it was a shame that all the crew had to kark it when they did, isn't it? Given a few months I'm sure you would have whined and wheedled and deceived and connived and whatever it would take to make me do whatever it took to get me out the way. Those smegging Titan mushrooms were the start, blatant sabotage to get me to go crazy, winding me up, egging me on, getting me to assault senior officers. I could have been court-martialled or chucked into the brig forever. My career was over, shot to hell after that. You were going to push me and push me until I went over the edge, you would have loved that; you have a nice set of quarters with a new bunk mate for however long they towed the line before you decided you didn't need them and you could smarm them out of the way. You could get your own Technician shift detail, wheedle into whatever…."

"You are so full of smeg…"

"You can't handle it, can you Lister? It takes one to know one and I know you Lister, you are scum and will do whatever it takes to get what you want."

Lister rushed forward, all restraint gone from his eyes. Rimmer stepped smartly back, tripping a little over the little heels. His eyes never left those dark orbs even as Lister screamed into his face.

"Get the hell out Rimmer!"

Rimmer carried on smiling.

"You lied and you're found out Lister. It was a good effort but your own horny libido brought you down. You lied and I'm still in command here."

Lister gritted his teeth.

"Whatever Rimmer. You're a ghost, a nothing. You are dead. Start acting like it. Either carry on haunting me or leave me the hell alone. Either way I'm not putting up with you or any of your smeg. You have nothing to hold over me."

Rimmer rolled his eyes and continued to grin. He looked down at himself, his hands picking at the hem of his dress, the other stroking his breast.

"You would do anything for this woman, wouldn't you? I mean; you honestly believed that you killed me and it barely fazed you."

Lister flinched.

"You were right this morning, I'll never understand the 'why'. But I guess now I know what I'm up against. You've drawn the line and its now out there for us both to see. It's me or her."

Lister unclenched his fists and had the decency to look uncomfortable.

"I wish I could say that I'm sorry Dave but we both know I would be lying. Holly, swap discs."

Rimmer winked. Kochanski's beautiful, short curvy body was gone, leaving Rimmer's 6' 2" rangy, khaki clad frame in its place. Lister's face fell, the anger spent. Rimmer half heartedly saluted.

"I will haunt you Dave, as long as I can keep myself here. I expect you to report for duty at 0900 tomorrow. "

Rimmer pivoted and marched off, his dignity only slightly marred by him slipping on the black patent leather heels that Holly had 'forgotten' to change.

Lister fell heavily into his chair and pulled the open lager to him in a daze. He upended the contents into his mouth and cast away the can, watching it skittle under the bunks.

He pulled the note the skutter handed to him that morning, the one he had read again and again while he was waiting for the kebabs to cook. The five words taking on a deeper meaning.

"I hope she's worth it"

He growled and lit up a cigarette. Rimmer was right about one thing, the lines were now drawn. However long it took, whatever it took, he would get her back.

_*_*_*_* FIN *_*_*_*_


End file.
